Abrace Inc. - Brazilian Association of Culture and Education

“Expenses office 705 information technology 2,495 insurance 915 misc. Office fees 3,522 supplies and food 86 postage & mailing service 396 telephone/communications 1,472 total 9,591”

“Accounts receivable 5,686 4,613 inventories for sale or use 1,559 1,589 prepaid expenses and deferred charges 828 1,146 total 8,073 7,348”

“Accounts payable and accrued expenses 7,835 8,696 deferred revenue 16,810 48,428”

“Abrace, inc.'s primary purpose is to promote and preserve the cultural, educational and social integration of the brazilian community in the united states, with a focus on the washington, dc metropolitan area, while strengthening the cultural ties between brazil and the united states. Our vision is to be recognized as an organization that, through participation and involvement of parents, teachers and children, inspires the community to embrace its brazilian identity and use this asset actively in their lives.”

“Brazilian heritage language program for children 2 to 17 years old. Abrace offers portuguese as a heritage language classes to children and grandchildren of brazilian immigrants. Last year we had an average of 140 students. They met nearly every saturday throughout two semesters. Despite the challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic, we were able to maintain our program available to our community, offering online classes and other educational activities for children and their families. Our families, teachers, friends and partners came together and demonstrated tremendous support, by participating in the activities, volunteering in events, and disseminating our program. The youth volunteer program, projov, created in january of 2018, remained strong and was essential in supporting the online activities throughout the year. The program enables young people ages 14 to 17 years old, speakers of portuguese as a heritage language, to combine their interests and talents and engage with our students, teachers, families and community in making the learning experience rich, fun and meaningful for all involved. An average of 12 adolescents contributed with positive actions, such as producing tutorials and storytelling videos to younger kids, organizing and maintaining our library, supporting teachers with learning activities in the classrooms, developing and promoting a reading program, blog writing, creating online games, among other activities that expand the concept of community service. The mobile library with more than 1500 books in portuguese remains a valuable resource for the community beyond the families of abrace's students. We offered access to our rich collection, guaranteeing a safe process of circulation of items by reserving specific times that families and teachers could reserve, pick up and/or return the books respecting the social distance required. Many families took this opportunity to enrich their children's literacy skills and language learning outside the virtual environment. In coordination with the youth volunteer program (projov), the library was a great resource for volunteers and teachers to introduce fun, diverse and interesting readings to our virtual classes and the "story telling" moment, posted on our social media outlets.”

“Activities for adults abrace offers brazilian portuguese language classes for non-portuguese speakers on a regular basis and various workshop classes and lectures, throughout the year, for families who live in a multicultural environment. Our goal is to provide resources for social/cultural integration for brazilian-american families in the washington metropolitan area and beyond, given the new horizons that virtual learning opened last year. In the spring of 2021, abrace, in partnership with the consulate general of brazil in chicago, offered a series of online workshops on portuguese as a heritage language, providing strategies and resources to families, allowing them to nuture the connection to the portuguese language and brazilian culture in their daily lives. With over 140 participants registered, from all over the country, the workshops promoted reflections and engaging activities covering traditional children's play, literature, folklore, music, dance and art. We will continue to offer different opportunities online and in-person to adults in our community to learn, develop and find support when exploring the field of language development and strengthening of their multicultural identity.”

“Other cultural programs cultural-educational we offered offered special literature and literacy- developing activities for children and youth with the objective of strengthening their language and knowledge in the arts. The youth volunteers led a reading incentive program called "ler e bom bemais", in which children are encouraged to log their daily reading, in portuguese, in exchange for small incentives/prizes when they finish a reading log. We were glad to report that, even with the social distancing measures, the adolescents were able to collect approximately 75 reading logs with more than 900 books listed. During fall 2020, we celebrated abrace's 15th anniversary with a series of virtulcultural and educational activities, which included an interview and book reading with the renowned children's book author, pedro bandeira. In partnership with educarte, a non-profit organization in the the music anddance field, we offered music classes to children for the two semesters, exploring concepts from basic understanding of music, rhythm and different instruments, to learning and enjoying popular brazilian children's songs. Due to covid restrictions, we were not able to hold our traditional book and cultural fairs. However, we kept collecting book donations for future events and strived to strengthen our partnership with local and brazilian non-profits in the area of culture, arts and music, such as educarte, emcantar and alecrim dourado, so we can keep offering rich and valuable experiences for our children and families.”